At virtually any moment — day or night — you can look up and know that somewhere over Earth there's a U-2 pilot at the edge of outer space, watching and listening.
The U-2 is the most famous spy plane in history. Developed in secret for the CIA more than 50 years ago, the U-2 first detected the movement of Soviet nuclear weapons into Cuba, sparking the Cuban Missile Crisis. But the U-2 is not just a piece of Cold War history; it has been quietly brought into the space age and is now flying more than ever.
The military doesn't like to talk about the U-2 plane much. Its missions are secret, much of its technology classified.
The U-2 flies so high, so fast, the pilot wears a spacesuit, the same one worn by astronauts on the space shuttle.
The chase cars talk the pilot down as he lands on bicycle-style landing gear. In that spacesuit, the pilot in the plane simply cannot get a good view of the runway.
